IN THE year that whistleblower Indian Forest Service officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi was conferred the Ramon Magsaysay Award for battling corruption, the Centre gave him an effective “zero” in his annual appraisal report.

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The appraisal was for the 2015-16 financial year when Chaturvedi was serving as Deputy Secretary at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi. It was the period when he had been stripped of his responsibilities and left “without work”, forcing him to move the Supreme Court.

The court has already issued a notice to the Centre on his plea.

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Chaturvedi has been given a score of 1 out of 10. According to the 2009 instructions of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), any grading from 0-4 is considered zero for the purpose of promotion and other service matters while any grading from 8-10 is considered outstanding.

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While evaluating Chaturvedi’s performance, V Srinivas, Deputy Director (Admn) of AIIMS, the officer’s immediate supervisor, noted in the report: “He (Chaturvedi) indulged in media leaks, proxy litigation, false complaints, disclosing information acquired by him during the course of his official duties.his proximity to several lawyers enabled him to indulge in 11 cases of proxy/needless litigation against president, AIIMS.”

The reviewing authority and then director of AIIMS, Dr MC Mishra — he retired on January 31 — also recorded a grading of 1 by simply endorsing Srinivas’s comments. Both recorded their grades the same day on December 29, 2016.

Next day, Union Health Minister J P Nadda, as president of AIIMS, the accepting authority of the appraisal report of the officer, also gave him 1, recording this observation: “I have gone through the reports of the reporting and reviewing authorities. However, since I have never directly monitored the performance of the officer reported upon and am not in position to form an independent opinion on it, as such, I cannot but agree with the assessment of his immediate superiors.”

Before this, Chaturvedi’s performance was consistently recorded as “outstanding” for the past five years in a row.